
Class J!&5_3_Sii1 



CopyrightK^. 



3-1^ 



CjDRfRIGHT DEJPOSm 



FROM THEIR GALLERIES 



From Their Galleries 

by 
A. DONALD DOUGLAS 



From Their galleries They tuatch this child's mystery-play ive play 




BOSTON 

The Four Seas Company 
1918 



Copyright, ipi8, by 
The Four Seas Company 



The Four Seas Press 
Boston, Mass., U. S. A. 



JUN 2 



M ( v 



^ib 



' ©CLA497954' 



TO GAIL 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Proem i i 

The Mirror 15 

The Bad Old Man of the World 19 

The Narrow House 23 

The Dino Saur That Wondered Why 27 

The Devourer of the Ages 37 

It 49 

The Main 61 

The Song of Songs 67 

Their Play 75 

Cor Cordium 87 

At the Last 97 



PROEM 



PROEM 

Fain I would beguile you with a tale of dreams. Fain 
I would proffer you these dreams for keeping. Within 
this tale of dreams there dwells the best of me; and 
there I fain would linger apart from the shame fulness 
and the little clamoring bigotries of life. They are 
no more than dreams by the wayside of life ; no more 
than fugitive reprievements from the inexorable 
passage of time. No more than this, perhaps, yet not 
unworthy of your listening. For in our dreams lies 
the whole truth of life, between the times of our 
eternal sleep. Will you not embark with me upon the 
stream that flows forever and forever round the turrets 
of our wakefulness ? Only in dreams may we unwind 
the coil of life that tangles us within our doom. Only 
in dreams may I give you something finer and truer 
than the vanity of words. Frail indeed is the wrought 
casket of dreams that I bring you for taking. Yet 
if its spun contents beguile you in an idle and 
charitable hour, it will not have been wrought in vain. 

II 



THE MIRROR 



THE MIRROR 

I SIT in a room gray and hoarded with twilight, and 
in marmoreal silence brood forever. I never laugh. 
I never cry. I never speak. I watch without pity, 
or fear, or passion. I watch always. I watch the rich 
shadows that throng the Mirror. Into the Mirror I 
gaze. Like scarlet butterflies the shadows gleam 
across the Mirror. Like scarlet butterflies that die 
with the sundown. My gaze is unwavering. I am 
not to be seduced by the fantastics that so briefly 
illumine the shallow surface. I am not to be misled 
by the dazzle of the hurrying figures. Colder and 
grayer grows the room. I have never smiled. The 
shadows in the Mirror dance under the press of 
passion, or faint with desire of love, or wax fierce and 
cruel in a flourish of swords and a spending of blood. 
Other and younger shadows shudder fitfully across 
the Mirror. And I watch always. Always, until the 
edge of doom. Always, until the eventual dissolution 
of the Mirror. 

15 



THE BAD OLD MAN OF THE WORLD 



THE BAD OLD MAN OF THE WORLD 

His little pig's eyes glittered like living jade ; his great 
leprous hands twiched in contemptuous convulsions. 
About his cavernous mouth flickered a smile sinister as 
a fugitive serpent. He was monstrous and evil and 
ageless; and he offered me happiness for buying at 
the price of tears. For all his great bulk I had long 
known that he was formless and void. Even his most 
carefully prepared gestures had never appeared to me 
as anything save tedious and weary affirmations of an 
hierarchic impressiveness in which himself hardly 
believed. Indeed I had reason to suspect that these 
tremendous muscular gyrations were solely intended 
to dazzle my eyes that I might not see the stars shining 
through his glutted body. 

In expounding his views upon life he was very 
earnest about his honesty, and his belief in the general 
goodness of things. He was especially fond of syl- 
logisms. Perhaps that was his most amiable weakness. 
From his cleft smile words were continually falling 

19 



20 FROM THEIR GALLERIES 

out and rolling down his paunch like huge painted 
balloons. On each of these balloons was written a 
conventional legend of virtue so ingeniously devised 
that I was almost sorry to impale them on my sword. 
If only they had not broken so easily! Once broken 
they melted into thin air. Not one withstood the test 
of my sword. It seemed too bad, when he was at such 
constant trouble to send new ones tumbling. He gib- 
bered monstrously down upon me, and even sought to 
flail me with his enormous hands. In his zeal of con- 
version he once hurled his gigantical welk upon me. 
I was not even conscious of his endeavor until after- 
ward he expained to me how hard he had tried. In 
very pity of him I told him that his syllogisms were 
all hanky-panky. But he did not seem to understand, 
and kept on manufacturing balloons with an inveterate 
and rather disheartening consistency* 



THE NARROW HOUSE 



THE NARROW HOUSE 

Behind me clashed to the ivory gate of dreams, and 
I stood in a dark dazzle of sunshine marbling the 
ground in lucent mist. From the doorway of a squat 
house she came to meet me, and ere the door was 
shut I caught sight of Something fearful and monstrous 
that lurked like an obscene Spider within the house. 
Before I could take her in my arms she pointed to the 
eyeless windows, and with a shuddering admonition 
laid her finger on her lips. We were ringed about 
with shifting barricades of purple clouds, and within 
the house that evil Something brooded and watched 
through the eyeless windows. 

Toward me she came with a delicate and wondrous 
submission. She was more desirable than ever I had 
dreamed; and the long agony of my waiting was 
crushing my heart within narrow bands of iron. Years 
unending I had stayed her coming, and the discipline 
of my worship had made me more perfect at this last. 
If even now this splendorous grail were offered mine 

23 



24 FROM THEIR GALLERIES 

for drinking, it would only be at an untold cost of 
tears. All the intention of being was wrought into 
that moment; all the price of my dead unworthiness 
now was gladly redeemed. 

But the clouds rolled between us, and through the 
vertiginous swirl of mist I could her face only like 
a flower that floats across still water. And then I 
knew that the Something monstrous and unclean had 
come from the house, and even now was fixing Its 
hairy desecration upon her. In my torture I would 
have cried, but my tongue clave to my mouth ; and in 
the intolerable silence I could hear the tears of blood 
that fell within my heart down unplumbed deeps of 
mortal anguish. 



THE DINO SAUR THAT WONDERED WHY 



THE DINO SAUR THAT WONDERED 

WHY 

And then the Dino Saur crankled out from the cave 
where he had dozed for ever so long, and snapped his 
scaled eyes at the wintry sun, and gazed. 

He was a vasty beast, as great, gray, and awesome 
as a Gothic church: only he was ugliest, and could 
move variously on the sea-green ice. For it was the 
time of First Things, and this round earth was sheeted 
all over with glaciers of sohd sea-green ice. The sun 
shone in a hard blue sky ; but it could not melt the ice. 
For the ice was much so colder than now, and six suns 
could not have melted it. And no one wants six suns 
in the sky : that would be too vulgar much, and Nature 
is vulgar only never. There were no ice men then, for 
every one was his own ice man. That is why they talk 
of the good old days, and nights, which are no more. 
At least, not now. 

And so the Dino Saur gazed, and saw only ice ; and 
he grew lonely, and sobbed. For ice does not make 
friends with vasty Dino Saurs. 

27 



28 FROM THEIR GALLERIES 

''Bloog!" said the Dino Saur. "I will roam." 

And the Dino Saur roamed on the glacial ice, where 
no grass grew, or birds sang. It was chill as ever so. 
The Dino Saur's breath blew pluff pluff, and made 
vapor clouds in the air, like when a steam engine 
starts, only noisier, and not so pretty nice. 

The Dino Saur plumbed hugely as he roamed on 
the ice, and the ice shook under his vasty tramplings. 
It was like the trampling of ten armies. But there 
were no flags, or drums, or jogglety horses: only a 
mere monster roaming on solid sea-green ice. Why 
did he roam? Because Dino Saurs always roam, or 
they die. That is why there are no Dino Saurs now : 
they all married, and did not roam. 

The wind in the time of First Things was sharp, 
and cut. So the Dino Saur wrapped his scales closelier 
about him, and pranced, to warm his blood, and to 
reach There the sooner. And when he came There, 
he saw Two who stood upright, and used tooth brushes, 
because they should. 

These Two had but two legs apiece; and the Dino 
Saur had forty. Think of buttoning twenty pairs of 
shoes each day, before Mr. Edison had invented the 
button hook! Let us not wonder if the Dino Saur 



THE DINO SAUR 29 

was hasty at times. Angels would not button twenty 
pairs of shoes each day. That is why angels go bare 
foot. Angels are sly. The Dino Saur was not sly, 
for he was so very new. Only old persons are sly. So 
I am told by those who know, or who say they 
do, which is the same thing, at least in this world. 

"Who are you?" asked the Dino Saur, and pointed 
with twelve of his forty legs at the ugly one of the Two. 

Never point with more than ten legs when asking. 
It is rude, and risky, and overdoes things a bit. That 
was the way with Dino Saurs. They overdid every- 
thing: legs, and questions, and second helpings. 

"I am Man," said the ugly one of the Two; and 
was proud, though why he should be, I do not know. 
Neither does he; and still he is proud. Perhaps that 
is why. 

"And who is that?" asked the Dino Saur, and 
pointed at the pretty one of the Two, this time with 
twenty of his legs, and a flappy-big ear. 

"That is She," said Man, "and I love Her, and 
She loves me." 

"Why?" asked the Dino Saur. 

"Because I am Man," said Man, "and She must, 
or She is not She." 



30 FROM THEIR GALLERIES 

"Is this true?" asked the Dino Saur, and looked 
at Her. 

"Yes," said She, "it is true." 

"But do you want to?" asked the Dino Saur. 

"I do not know," She said, because She knew. "I 
never thought about it." 

"She never thinks," said Man. "Only I think. At 
least I think I think; and that is so." 

"Some day She may think," said the Dino Saur. 

"I hope not," said Man, "for then She will not 
love me." 

And this is true. 

And Man sat on a lump of ice, and said big words 
about Love and Life and Man ; but mostly about Man. 
And She combed his hair, which was rumpled almost 
ever, and baked him pan cakes, and mended his eoliths. 
For She was She, and it always will be so, until She 
begins to think. 

The Dino Saur was big beset, for he could not see 
Why. And that is why Dino Saurs are not seen now. 
When some one does not see Why, the world pities him, 
and sends him off to a cold remote place, and we do not 
know him again. I know of many Dino Saurs dungeoned 
in cold remote places, because they could not see Why. 



THE DINO SAUR 31 

And Man sang of Man, his strength, his love, his 
life. He sang it so long that at last he thought it must 
be true. And She smiled, for She knew. And She 
still smiles, and some times weeps, for She knows, 
though She never tells. 

Man left Her for a day and a night, and hunted 
foolishly for fuzzy cave bear and woolly rein deer 
among the glaciers. And he caught fuzzy cave bear 
and woolly rein deer, and killed them dead. He did 
not eat them, for he ate only pan cakes, and gum drops, 
on Sundays, with butter. The fuzzy cave bear and 
the woolly rein deer had never done him harm, or 
laughed at his great foolishness. But he was Man; 
and so he killed them. That was his way of showing 
his love for Her. And She sat in the cave, and 
mended his socks, which were red, and baked him pan 
cakes; and waited long. And of a once Man thought 
of Her, and came back, and spoke hastily to Her, 
because there was no butter for the gum drops, such 
as he loved, and must have. A tear fell from Her 
eye. But still She loved Man, for She knew, and knows. 

And the Dino Saur sat outside the cave, and but- 
toned his twenty pairs of shoes upside down from 
worry; and wondered Why. 



32 FROM THEIR GALLERIES 

After a while, when Man in his foolishness was out 
hunting the fuzzy cave bear and the woolly rein deer, 
the Dino Saur would sit with Her, and listen when She 
talked. Man would often talk with Her, but he never 
listened. But the Dino Saur would listen. He helped 
Her to darn Man's socks, which were always red, and 
to make pan cakes, which were never. He could flop 
forty pan cakes at once with his forty feet. 

And so She had little to do, and much time to think. 
And She too began to wonder Why. But even She 
will never know Why, because there is no Why. 

One day when Man came back to Her, the Dino 
Saur said simply, "I like Her, and I am going to 
take Her." 

Then Man grew angry, and he cried, ''Take her, 
who loves me, and whom I love? You may not take 
Her. She is mine forever. She told me so when I 
asked Her, ever so far ago, and a word may not 
change. I am Man, and shall not let you take Her. 
You are not worthy of Her, with your many feet, and 
your clumsy vasty self." 

And that was the first Moral Indignation. Man 
thought that what he said must be so ; or he pretended 
that it was so, which is the same thing with Man. 



THE DINO SAUR 33 

The Dino Saur hung his head, with its flappy-big 
ears, and shifted on his forty feet, and looked at Her. 

"Choose !" said the Dino Saur. 

"Choose?" said Man. "There can be no choice! 
What have you to offer Her? Are you fit to care for 
Her, and to guard Her against the spiteful fuzzy bear 
and woolly rein deer? I alone understand H^er." 

And that was the first Romance, or the first Lie, 
which is much the same, and every one knows it, 
though no one will say that he does. 

And She looked at Man and chose, as She always 
will choose, even when She wonders Why. She saw 
that Man was weak, and could not do without Her. 
Who would darn his socks, which were red? Who 
would give him his gum drops, with butter, on Sundays ? 
Who would part his hair, when it was rumpled, as it 
was always? And so She chose. 

"I told you," said Man, "that I alone understand Her." 

And a second tear fell from Her eye. And then 
She laughed, for She knew. 

But the Dino Saur moved off sadly, and hid in a 
cavern, and wept largely. And he became a Phil- 
osopher, and wrote books that no one will read, 
because they ask Why. 



THE DEVOURER OF THE AGES 



THE DEVOURER OF THE AGES 

Even her very best friends admitted that the Princess 
was braver than she was beautiful. And since she 
always grew to be more beautiful the day after to- 
morrow than she was to-morrow, a public adhiission 
of her utter bravery wrought no inconsiderable a stir 
in the circles of court gossip that eddied round and 
round the inmost penetralia where resided the Princess 
and her most royal parents, who, of course, hardly 
counted. Most visibly her bravery manifested its most 
audacious infringements upon that court etiquette 
come down from the gray deluding mists of time. 
However exemplarily the Princess might conduct her 
royal highness' self in the mere matter of forks and 
spoons at the dinner table, and the proper and ac- 
credited method of opening eggs laid fresh by the royal 
and privileged hens, there was no denying that often 
her vagaries outran the discretions of the widest 
tolerance. Not even that high allowance of individual 
genius bestowed by birth upon the ten thousandth ex- 
ample of the agelong race of royalty could altogether 

37 



38 FROM THEIR GALLERIES 

excuse the remarkable and continued eccentricities of 
the Princess in the affairs of her nocturnal dis- 
pensations. 

Among her aunts and uncles, gathered in murky 
conclave over this latest escapade of their niece, there 
now rose a grave avuncular anxiety lest the permitted 
continuance of royal unreserves should endanger the 
very court etiquette without whose sanction and ob- 
servance the court life could not long persist. It was 
all very well for the Princess to prefer Modern Novels 
to those books which every Princess is constrained by 
tradition to accept, and by every instinct of her heart 
to despise. The milk-white heroines therein serving as 
exemplars of the higher morality of Mr. Alfred 
Tennyson's time were perhaps just a little dull for a 
growing girl more interested in her own feminine 
caprices than in the pathetical history of the Lady of 
Shalott. And so for once the royal aunts and uncles 
of the Princess, and her most royal parents who hardly 
counted at all, were for the once willing that she should 
proceed with her immodest and unpardonable, but 
doubtless natural consumption of Modern Novels 
wherein heroines did not take their own purity quite 
so seriously as Mr. Alfred Tennyson supposed. 



THE DEVOURER OF THE AGES 39 

But the Princess' going to bed early, and so missing 
the court balls simply that she might dream, was an 
affair deserving more than an incidental censure. Not 
only was it setting a precedent for early retiring, and 
so reducing the income of the royal electric light 
companies (Ltd.), but it was undermining the very- 
fabric of royalty. The whole affair might have been 
praiseworthy enough if the Princess had gone to bed 
to dream of the Prince who, according to the most 
reputable tradition, was to emerge one day from the 
future and claim her as his blushful bride. Since the 
very first wedding ceremonies of the royal house of 
Jumjum that had always been the same old business, 
and for all that they could see it would go on being 
the same old business until the edge of time. History 
was always repeating itself, like the king in his public 
speeches. That seemed the only possible excuse for 
history. 

Until one morning at breakfast the Princess an- 
nounced the real reason for her premature retirement, 
the aunts and uncles, and indeed the whole court, who 
did not know how to count, had always imagined that 
she was simply prolonging the very most founded 
hierarchies of the royal tradition by dreaming of the 



40 FROM THEIR GALLERIES 

Prince. But one day after eating of a third egg 
specially laid by the royal and privileged hens for 
matutinal consumption, she did not scruple to declare 
that she went to bed early simply that she might dream 
of a certain — and here she paused with spoon uplifted 
the better to enforce the horrifical indignation that her 
announcement would engender — of a certain Crocodile 
forever pursuing her down the pathway of her most 
spectacular dreams. With an air of ingenuous con- 
fidence the Prncess continued her remarks by saying 
that she hoped the Crocodile would one day catch her, 
and that is why she should keep on retiring early in 
order that the anxious Saurian might not think that 
she was not giving Him a chance, though she hoped 
that no one would tell Him so. That would set a 
precedent for courtship which she for one would not 
shoulder as her responsibility to the coming ages. 

For a moment the assembled aunts and uncles and 
the royal parents, who counted only now and then just 
to fortify the tradition, were transfixed into a flourish 
of the most frozen and absolute unbelief. The whole 
thing was only another childish caprice for which no 
Princess is to be held accountable. Through the 
passage of long centuries and the accumulation of 



THE DEVOURER OF THE AGES 41 

funded superstitions the court world had grown so 
won to the idea that a Princess, especially when she 
happens to be a girl, is unanswerable to logic that they 
preferred the simple method of continuing their ravish- 
ment of the royal sideboard of its hams, oatmeals, and 
muffins, and put aside the Princess' revelation as one 
of those things one says after a bad night and then 
as promptly forgets. But for all the fact that she had 
been brought up to obey her elders out of kindness to 
their helplessness the Princess was not to be so easily 
subjected. In one breath she asked for another but- 
tered muffin, and continued to expatiate upon the 
saurian excellencies and irresistible attributes of that 
dream Crocodile. In so many dreams, she explained, 
she had never seen Him, but doubtless He was a 
splendid Fellow. Rather than allow a tedious summary 
of reptilean virtues her royal aunts and uncles, and her 
royal parents, who this time left off counting, put down 
their spoons and forks and amiability with an air of 
undoubted vexation and hurled their avuncular and 
parental thunders upon the head of the Princess. 

But she so persisted in her saurian disclosures with 
the virginal security from the shafts of logic so parcel 
of the very race of Princesses that her various rela- 



42 FROM THEIR GALLERIES 

tions and her backward parents perceived at last just 
how they should have to make the best of a bad Prin- 
cess. With a false assumption of casual unconcern 
and an aloof We-don't-care-a-dambness they gathered 
up their royal robes and egg-shells, and departed in 
very high dudgeon. Outraged royalty never departs 
in anything less, complex than high dudgeon, and they 
were the last ones to begin a dangerous precedent. 
Had the Princess been really more regardful of her 
supposed tutelary obediences to those older than her- 
self and therefore more qualified to misunderstand 
things, she might have improved matters very generally 
by divulging the fact that the Crocodile had eaten up 
all her other dreams, and that therefore she couldn't 
dream of anything else save that omniverous Saurian. 
But no Princess trades in the stuff of logical explana- 
tions to those less subtle than herself; and so it is 
always forgiven her, though if a mere Prince took 
upon himself so baffling an oracular discretion he 
would have a damb bad time of it. That the Princess 
did not reveal the authentic reason for her supposed 
vagaries is, however, a credit rather than a detriment 
to her intellectual development. Mere testamentary 
evidence she did not possess; and the court would 



THE DEVOURER OF THE AGES 43 

have demanded nothing less cogent than testamentary 
evidence. 

That midway of the night as she was clambering 
with a careless serenity up the blank face of the wall 
that led to the Crocodile's cavern she chanced to look 
down in an easy access of courage. Then she wished 
she hadn't just as you always wish you hadn't when 
it is too late. 

Below her a swirl of mists revolved in tortuous coils 
over a spectral ocean beating in an uneasy moan of 
baffled tides upon a wan and glimmering beach. A 
leaden stretch of cloud filmed the sky; and the air 
murmured horribly with whisperings of nameless 
unremembered things and a flurry of blown snow- 
flakes. Over the unfolding crevasses of the waves the 
foam crept in wounded and faceless convolutions. At 
the cliff's bottom writhed a darkness absolute. Des- 
perately she clambered for perilous foothold upon this 
cliff sheer and bland as spun glass. Sinister gusts of 
fear dimmed in her heart the tall candles of her faith. 
Her eyes faded with the dread of her endeavor. Wildly 
she wished that she had not come so far this night 
toward these forlorn caverns where the Crocodile 
housed His mystery so awfully. Yet she dared not let 



44 FROM THEIR GALLERIES 

slip her vantage upon the cUif lest she tumble to per- 
dition. If only she had been contented to seek the 
place of her desiring down those rosebloomed path- 
ways that heretofore had been the voyages of her 
dream- wanderings ! No means had she ever had of 
guessing that the goal would rest within a voiceless 
cavern set in the horror of this cliff. It was not for 
nothing that she had gained her public reputation for 
bravery. Though no one was looking on, and no one 
would ever know, she was answerable to the command- 
ments of her heart ; and those commandments would 
never let her relinquish the quest whose ending she 
must ascertain. 

Beneath her striving feet the wall seemed to shim- 
mer down like the overpassed unwindings of a mon- 
strous serpent ; and at last her hands clung to a tuft at 
the cliff's verge. Her hands were bleeding and broken. 
Her body was scarred and torn with her triumphing 
agony. Yet she dawdled her feet over the cliff's verge 
and laughed into the chasms. Her heart resumed 
again the rhythm of its careless singing, and she smiled 
a little bitterly to think that dreams could make even 
a Princess afraid before Crocodiles. Softly she 
prayed that her soul might ever stay inviolate before 



THE DEVOURER OF THE AGES 45 

the race of Crocodiles, and the terror that waits upon 
human dreams. 

As she breathed her brave espousals of life there fell 
upon her cheek the noisome breath of Something im- 
mensurate and overreaching in its fear the little tawdry 
horrors she had overcome. She dared not turn to see 
what was behind her. She dared not cry out, and so 
wake safely in her little white bed. Here was the final 
testing of her courage; here was the ordeal of life 
itself. Behind her slavered and brooded the very 
Crocodile of Crocodiles, uprearing His vast bulk flaked 
with the blood and tears of the generations of Prin- 
cesses He had devoured through the unnumbered ages. 
How dreadful and immeasurable of horror He was 
she scarcely dared imagine. Now at last she knew 
without questioning that she stood in His presence 
wherefrom her race of Princesses had been so jeal- 
ously excluded. The very Crocodile of Crocodiles was 
waiting for her answer to the challenge of the ages. 

Down through a coil of mist she looked to the fierce 
sea; and on her neck His breath grew hot and foul. 
It was the Beast of Time who had stayed for her : the 
Beast who had clawed and soiled the dreams of all 
the world's Princesses since the crack of the first 



46 FROM THEIR GALLERIES 

dawn. Armed only with the faith of her heart and 
the brave blue of her eyes should she turn and con- 
front Him? One leap into the gusty air that swirled 
down upon the sea, and she would land safely in her 
little white bed where the sun was and the birds sang. 
One turn of her body and she would confront the 
Devourer of the Ages, the very Crocodile of Croco- 
diles. The choice was laid on her. Which way her 
doom was she could not know. The choice was laid 
on her, and she had made it: the Devourer of the 
Ages, or the room where the sun was and the birds 
sang. She drew to her heart all her spent strength, 
and — 



IT 



IT 

Ever since that first wind-driven night when she had 
heard Its low ominous cough just behind the closet 
door where hung her pinkest party dresses, she had 
known It as a dreadful familiar. In the spumy dark 
It was most real to her. But even when clean winds 
girdled the sunlighted world, and the spring cjad fields 
in an ever sweeter bravery, she knew that It was 
somewhere close at hand in waiting for that one false 
step which should prove her doom. The her eyes 
would grow wide with dreadful fear, and she would 
run and hide within the curtaining folds of her nurse's 
flappy skirts. 

They could never understand the cause of these 
swift anguishes, and by all the means in their power 
they sought to make her tell. That she would never 
do; and It knew that she would never tell upon It. 
So they wrote her feeling down to childish caprice, 
just as they wrote down everything mysterious and 
shy to childish caprice, and went upon their comfort- 

49 



50 FROM THEIR GALLERIES 

able ways. It was their custom, and they couldn't 
change it for her inscrutable childishness. Dinner 
must be on time. Guests could not be kept waiting. 
And in their favor it must be recorded that she had 
never told. She kept It to herself ; and in her young 
soul Its cough sounded low and ominous. 

With the years she grew to be very lovely, and too 
big to hide within her nurse's flappy skirts. They 
were very sure that she was too big to fall into those 
strange and sudden transfixions of mysterious terror. 
They were very sure about everything that concerned 
her. For her caprice they scolded her, and threatened 
to stop her pocket-money. She tried not to cry; but 
not to cry out under the torture was a grievous task. 
If only she could have told about It the torture would 
have been the easier to bear. And now Its cough was 
louder and harsher, and within a thick crackle of 
sound held the menace of a certain doom. It seemed 
to brood in the corner where the shadows gathered at 
dusk, and to send out Its doom into her happiest hours. 
Her eyes were gray and shy, and within their deeps 
lay an unuttered pain. So sure she was that no one 
could understand her that she talked always of com- 
mon matters, and pretended to be interested in their 
doings. 



IT 



51 



They were busy and active. So much so that they 
never guessed how little caught she was into their 
murmurous disposals. They had never been given to 
guesswork. Of everything they had always been as- 
sured. They had always known all about her and what 
her soul was thinking, and they never scrupled to tell 
her their thoughts. What could she do save smile her 
shy and secret smile, her eyes astare with strained 
attention lest It should ever come upon her sight, her 
ears set to catch that low and ominous cough which 
had sounded within her soul since that first warning 
from the closet door behind whose barrier hung her 
pinkest party dresses. 

About their tasks they were so busy and happy that 
they had little occasion to try to probe into her soul, 
and learn the reason for that wan smile which so belied 
the laughter in her gray eyes. She was so lovely and 
wise and young. But to them she would always be 
the fanciful baby who cried for no reason at all, and 
hid foolishly in nurse's wide-flapping skirts. And so 
they went their comfortable ways ; and when she did 
not come or seemed averse they only smiled as who 
should say: 'Tis only a girl's caprice. Let her stay 
if she wants. We have other work afield. And off 



52 FROM THEIR GALLERIES 

they would go, shouting and talking all at once; and 
their words would bumble like industrious bees seek- 
ing honey in withered flowers. 

As she stood in the doorway and watched them go 
the light would fade in her young gray eyes and a 
dreadful terror would film their sweetness. Now Its 
cough 'came always from the murky stairs that led 
dimly up to the attic room ; and from her place in the 
slant sunshine she could hear that sound creep slowly 
down the stairs and pause at the door but thirty paces 
behind her. Then the cough rattled against the 
separating door ; and she put her hand over her mouth 
to stay the uttering of her fear. This day the cough 
was lower and more ominous ; and her heart went sick 
with fright. In the golden distance she could see them 
at play ; and she longed to run and join their careless 
sport. How happy they were in the sunshine away 
from the cough behind the separating door! How 
happy and careless they were in their understanding 
of her! She ran out through the doorway and flung 
herself upon the grass and shook with fear. Now Its 
cough pattered against the window pane, low and 
ominous and charged with doom. In sudden courage 



IT 



S3 



she looked at the window, just too late to see It 
shamble from Its post of vengeful observation. 

And so with the years she grew even lovelier with 
her sweet wisdom and youth. Of course they never 
knew, though in growing numbers they came to petition 
for her hand. Into each one's eyes she looked long 
and with an agonized hope. In each one's eyes she 
found only emptiness. She was sad and sorry, so 
she said truly, and cried a little when they were not 
there to see. They were so nice. They were all dar- 
lings. And at first they took it so very hard. And 
then always they went away and found others, and 
doubtless laughed at their first madness for her and 
her sweet gray eyes. But their laughter she did not 
hear. She heard only Its cough, low and ominous, 
and just at her shoulder. 

Under her torture she would have cried; but there 
was no one to hear or undersand.. With It even she 
would have pled for pity; but never could she see It, 
no matter how quickly she turned her head to look. 
Always It just shambled out of sight. Always It 
returned and Its cough grew harsher and more cer- 
tain, there at her shoulder, or by her pillow at night 
in the great dark. 



54 FROM THEIR GALLERIES 

They petted her, and increased her pocket-money. 
Told her that she too must join in their zest. She was 
growing to muse and mope overmuch, they said. She 
was too fanciful and childish, they exclaimed. They 
argued that she needed some work, some play, some- 
thing to take her from herself. She smiled her wan 
smile; and the light in her fading eyes grew more 
haggard. They meant so well; and once even she 
told them. They only told her that she should put 
It in a book. They could never understand. They 
would never understand. They were of this world. 
She did not want to be taken from herself, but from 
Its cough, low and ominous, there at her shoulder. 

Her pillow was stained with her helpless weeping. 
From Its cough she sought shelter in their company. 
They wondered why she should so suddenly start and 
tremble, and why she should so suddenly look over 
her shoulder, her face gone gray with fear. They said 
it was nerves, an extended childhood. They counseled 
doctors. They said that tennis would help. They 
were so nice and kind, and brought her lemonade. But 
always at her sudden turning she would see Its shadow 
flicker dimly from one of the laughing faces, and 
again Its cough would sound behind her, there at her 



IT 55 

shoulder. Not one of them saw the rack upon which 
she was stretched. Her nights were one long stretch 
of certain hell. A hell gray and endless. A hell 
through whose echoing and interminable perspectives 
rattled a cough, distinct, appalling, and certain in its 
menace. Nowhere were there eyes sweeter and grayer 
than hers. But always at her waking they were wet 
with anguished tears. She was pale and dim. Her 
low weeping in the night made them afraid. They 
became anxious, in their kind and useless fashion. 
They called in expensive and special doctors to talk 
to her and minister to her. These could do nothing. 
Them she could not tell. They were of this world. 
They could not hear Its cough, low and ominous, 
there at her shoulder. 

Always, always, there at her shoulder. 

From the first she was sure that he was not like 
them. It was not that he did not laugh and play and 
sing. Like them he danced, and was happy. Or 
appeared to be. She could not be sure. He had only 
been there for a few days, and yet he seemed to have 
been there always. He did not try to cheer her, as 
the others did, nor did he tell her that her eyes were 
gray and young and wise. At least he did not tell her 



56 FROM THEIR GALLERIES 

so in words. She could not remember that he had 
passed more than a few words with her. But those 
words had been strange and terrible. They seemed 
charged with an accusing knowledge. They were: 
"Do not turn, now. On your life do not turn. If you 
turn now, you will see. You must not see, though for 
a time you must continue to hear. As you bear me 
respect for my honor, do not turn. Look into my 
face. No shadow will rest there." 

It was very hard not to turn. Its cough demanded 
that she turn and see. Its cough was harsh and men- 
acing, and imbued with a dreadful command. A 
command she would have given almost her life to obey. 
Its cough now was continuous, and with the hours the 
command grew harsher and more insistent. It was 
most difficult at night, when he was not there. At 
night it seemed as if her life's blood were drained 
lest she should turn, and see, there by her pillow in the 
great dark. 

Yet she did not turn. Even when he was not there 
she did not turn. And one moonstruck night when no 
winds blew, and the room was fraught with a desper- 
ate horror of command, she could bear the torture no 
longer, and she turned to see. But before she could 



IT 57 

turn she knew that he was standing before her in the 
moonstruck night. He had come in by the window. 
He came to her bed and took her head in his hands. 
He sat by her bed, and pillowed her head upon his 
bosom. He spoke gravely and quietly that his words 
might be believed. 

"I could not sleep," he said. "I knew that to-night, 
if ever, you would turn. Since I am come into this 
place I have not slept. I knew that to-night, if ever, 
you would turn, and see. So I came." 

When his voice had ceased she heard Its cough, 
harsh and insistent, there by her shoulder, by his 
bosom as he held her. 

"Do you not hear It?" she said wildly, and her 
body trembled so that almost it escaped his holding. 

"Do you not her It?" she shrilled like one mad, 
and her eyes were wan and blood-filled. "Always, 
always, I have heard It; and always they have never 
understood. You, you only seem to understand. 
vSurely you must hear It; surely you too must obey." 

But still he sat grave and immobile, and held her 
within his arms. 

"I have not heard It," he said. "I alone understand ; 
but I have not heard It. Of me even It is afraid. And 



58 FROM THEIR GALLERIES 

after this night you too shall never hear Its cough. 
This night you were very near your doom; and had 
I not known I should have come in ill time. After 
this night I shall never leave you. Always the moon 
and the sun shall find us together. Always until the 
close of the last dusk." 

As she lay upon his bosom in the moonstruck room 
she still trembled and shrank awfully from Its cough, 
low and ominous, even there by her shoulder, on his 
bosom. And she knew that now she should never 
turn, and see. Not even Its shadow, gray and shamb- 
ling, upon their faces and upon his face that guarded 
her. 

About them in the palsied room the shadows crept 
and departed with the haggard moon, and at last were 
winnowed by the scarlet dawn. And in that hour of 
new life he gathered her stricken face into his arms, 
and his tears fell upon her heart. 



THE MAIN 



THE MAIN 

"Let the great river take me to the main" 

Behind the murmurous clinkle of tea-cups her soul 
builded itself a dark curtain of silence. Here it was 
very dim and gray; and here her soul sang a furtive 
melodious psalmody. Somewhere outside her ram- 
part they were talking very fast and very loud., They 
were very sure that they were going to do something 
about it all. What, they were not certain; but some- 
thing immediate and real. Something earnest and 
active. How strange it was to sit in the gathered 
gloom, and hear their voices bumble drowsily without 
like strayed insects set upon unimagined industries. 
They always came to conclusions. Then they would 
come shouting and crowding in upon her; and behind 
her young smile she would sit and watch. She could 
only see neck-ties and shoes, trim, shiny shoes, and 
hear insistent voices. There must be no delay ! Things 
were pressing, A moment more, and it might be too 
late. Weren't things — immediate. 

6i 



62 FROM THEIR GALLERIES 

She heard her voice reply that things were very 
lovely. Very lovely indeed. It must be her voice: at 
the time no one else was speaking. Not one of them 
was speaking ! It might be they were waiting for her 
to speak. At times they did. They looked like people 
waiting for obedient echoes. At rebound from her 
young lips their words sounded the more resonant. 
They seemed to be waiting for her to say that some- 
thing, anything must be done, now, at once. 

Here in this gray twilight country her soul went 
singing. Beloved, wordless songs that were her very 
own. Songs no one had taught her. They were 
always trying to teach her; they never had taught 
her songs. Here things were lovely. Perspectives, 
scarlet and gray perspectives, down which her soul 
went singing. This time her soul was singing an elegy. 
It was mournful, but very pleasant, here in these un- 
folding glooms. Endless and interminable perspectives 
they were, with never a hint at an impending close. 
Just beyond might lie sunlighted valleys, austere 
mountains, generous uplands, august rivers broad and 
deep. She was sure that there must be rivers. On 
them she would go sailing. Down them to the main, 
the great main, the main of her eventual seeking. 



THE MAIN 63 

Again they came crowding in upon her, and de- 
manded that she furnish pleasant and sentimental echoes 
from her young lips. Clothed in her delicate accents 
their words seemed really touched with heroic sub- 
limity. Clothed in glamour. No longer drab and 
scolding, no longer fussy and dingy. Like swooping 
owls in the haunted dusk their words plucked at her. 
Then they were silent, waiting her reply. 

Down the dark river her soul went singing its 
delectable elegy. Down the river broad and deep, 
toward the main, the great main of her eventual dis- 
covery. How much narrower than before its channel 
was ; how dark and restless the current ! Mists, gray 
and scarlet, shimmered over the turbid surface. Be- 
hind their curtaining lay in wait the main. Over its 
deeps the winds might hurry and chastise, the waves 
engulf, the clouds brood. Yet it was the main, her 
main, her very own for keeping! 

Down the dark river her soul went singing. The 
main lay, it must lie, just beyond the further bend. 
There at the bend hovered sea-gulls, scarlet and gray 
and mysterious. Her elegy swelled to a psean. Her 
elegy gathered to its singing the greatness of her 
discovery. 



64 FROM THEIR GALLERIES 

But they came crowding in upon her. The mur- 
murous clinkle of tea-cups no longer sheltered her. 
It was time to go. Time to have her voice send correct 
sentiments, dutiful appreciations from young lips. 

Why had they come then, then? Her soul had been 
singing on the edge of discovery, at the dark river's 
final bend, on the verge of the steep and irretrievable 
cliff way that guarded the main, the great main of her 
eventual discovery. They had crowded in upon her; 
they had taken her main away from her. They had 
no right, no right! 

At the door her voice sent correct sentiments, duti- 
ful appreciations from young lips. Behind it all her 
soul mourned, and would not be comforted. It was 
not fair, not just! They had taken the main, her 
main, the great main of her delectable discovery. 



THE SONG OF SONGS 



THE SONG OF SONGS 

A SECRET bird's sudden caroling close at hand made 
him pause to hearken from the dim and perilous re- 
cesses of his sleep-walking, and he opened his eyes 
in the great dawn. He stood just at the cliff's edge. 
Another step would have cast him into the void. The 
mists of night were being splintered with the spears 
of dawn. Below him a leadened sea broke on spiney 
rocks and yellow sand. Into the creeping waters 
delved sea-birds with spent wings. The ledge whereon 
he stood was girt with pines in whose mysterious deeps 
the light was swallowed by perdurable darkness. From 
those deeps had come the secret bird's sudden caroling. 
Through those deeps he had passed in his sleep-walking 
ere he emerged into the great dawn. This gush of 
fierce light incarnadined the world. The sea's gray 
was patched with crimson, and the rocks glinted like 
a crouched dragon's burnished scales. There at the 
cHif's edge he hid his face in his hands, and wept 
pitifully. 

67 



68 FROM THEIR GALLERIES 

These many years he had wept for the whole world's 
wrong. Now he was weeping in very pity of his soul. 
Among men he might come and go with careless 
jesting and unconsidered laughter. Here the burden 
of life lay heavy upon his soul and wrung tearless 
weeping from his very heart. The world was old and 
evil in sin. Behind the world's antic of fools lay in 
wait the heart of things, cold, tearless, implacable. 
Among the sweaty crowds of men he laughed with the 
rest at the sorry destiny earth's children played under 
the unhurrying sun. Here his hope had left him 
with the night, and even in the great dawn he saw 
only a rue of blood. 

Scarlet light flooded the reluctant tides, and en- 
gulfed all darkness save only those mysterious deeps 
of the pine forest whence first had come the secret 
bird's sudden caroling. The yellow sands devoured 
the eager light, and the sea's eye turned a lustering 
green with prisoned radiancy. Little wandering clouds 
flecked the edge of the world like curious truant night- 
birds conjured from those stretches of unconquerable 
darkness that lie beyond the sky's verge. Into the 
vault of the heavens the sun ascended ever higher and 
flung his slant spears into the mysterious deeps of the 



THE SONG OF SONGS 69 

pine forest. Freshets of hurrying winds blew coldly 
down upon the green sea and the yellow sands. Yet 
no sound came from the dark forest since the secret 
bird's first caroling in the great dawn. 

He lifted his anguished face from his hands, and 
turned unsteadily toward the pines. Of his most 
secret sorrow he too had made a little song, and had 
sung it in the market-place where men came to buy 
and sell their immortal souls. For a trifle the world 
had bought his song, and had called him a dealer in 
words. His fees to the world had been paid in blood, 
and they had dared to call him a dealer in words ! Yet 
in his heart he could find no cause to blame them. So 
very many were dealers in words, and purveyors to 
the groundlings of the soul's most resolute, most con- 
secrate emotion. To the world he was one other of 
those gaudy clowns and chattering knaves coining the 
heart's shy singing into base metal. His song he had 
bartered for alloy. His words he had let slip into the 
stinking winds of the market-place. Then had come 
upon him a horror of clattering fanfare and the throaty 
voices of men, and he had fled to his little house near 
the green sea that he might forget the song which 
he had sung. 



70 FROM THEIR GALLERIES 

Here to the cliff's edge in a thraldom of sleep- 
walking he had wandered ere he was awakened by 
the secret bird's sudden caroling. Into the night and 
forest paths he had strayed, and save for that sudden 
caroling he had fallen on the far rocks and yellow sand. 

In his bitterness of vain years he would have prayed 
that he might have been released from the pain of life, 
and that the bird had not dared to carol in the great 
dawn. In his grievous crying out at the wrong of things 
he would not have refused even the last renunciation. 
His little song he had sung in the garish market-places 
of the world. He had been little better than a fool 
juggling with gilded phrases before a clamorous and 
joyless populace. Posturing knaves and wordy clowns 
might still shout their travesties of noble love and dis- 
play their festering conceits before ravening crowds 
of purchasers. His soul's most resolute, most conse- 
crate emotion he would make dedicate only to that 
inscrutable and desirous hope from whose most secret 
sorrow he had fashioned his little song. 

Everywhere about him lay golden and gathering 
sunlight and the stir of an awakened and triumphant 
earth. Everywhere the sunlight glistened, save in those 
mysterious deeps of the dark forest. And suddenly 



THE SONG OF SONGS 71 

there broke again upon his hearing the secret bird's 
sudden caroling. Then it had given him pause at the 
cliff's fateful edge. Now it commanded him, it sang 
of strange and shy and lovely reassurances, of secret 
hopes that he had hardly dared to dream, there in the 
mysterious deeps of the dark forest. Its singing 
may have been involuntary and undeliberate; but 
of its undying sweetness he could never doubt in a 
world of vain appearances and fabulous delusions. 
With a gesture of infinite inclusion, and the long des- 
pair of years forever stilled within his heart, he turned 
and stumbled blindly toward the secret bird's 
mysterious caroling. 



THEIR PLAY 



THEIR PLAY 

The scarlet poppies of sundown yet gleamed across 
the mown fields of darkness before Their laughter 
died out along the fading edge of the woild. They 
had come down from those Uplands girled with the 
gray mists of old Night, and had played a new play 
such as They had never played since They were grown 
wearied of playing nine-pins with a scud of hurrying 
stars amid vasty abysms of space. At the daybreak 
of Time They had adventured to the world of Man 
in the hope that They might gather new tales for 
telling when once more They should speed with rich 
laughter the million million untroubled years that span 
the birth and death of new worlds. Their new play 
had been a good play, and They were now returning 
to Their Uplands in the full mood of an uproarious 
laughter that beat upon the ramparts uphelded by the 
twain poles and swept by the gusts of the everlasting 
winds. From the unplumbed vault of the heavens 
echoed Their laughter: from the bottomless deeps of 

75 



76 FROM THEIR GALLERIES 

the southern hemispheres. Never had Their mirth so 
buffeted agaist the wall of things, or so lingered in 
the twilight. 

But had They not cause for careless laughter? Had 
They not played a good play with human souls? 

On a high hill set above valleys where the sunshine 
dwelled lovingly on the formidable work of the Seven 
Days They found Man brooding on the exceeding 
greatness of his possessions. For long Man had 
dreamed upon the new-born world spread like a play- 
thing at his triumphing feet. The wine-dark sea that 
foamed its tempesting surf upon the stretch of sand 
was his for the asking. His were the green forests 
along the ridge of the eternal hills; and to his harvest- 
ing would come the rich spoil of the meadow lands. 
As yet no heat and dust of the tortuous years, or any 
winnowing of human tears and blood had overlaid 
the first fruits of the Maker. The daysong of the 
young morning stars came faint and pure across the 
wine-dark sea, and birds sang on the autumnal hills. 
Not yet was Man the prisoner of life. 

They had found Man on the high hill and had 
whispered Their counsels into his soul; and had 
crowded into the front rows of Their galleries for 



THEIR PLAY 'j^ 

what They knew would come. There is no with- 
standing Their humor; and Man had risen from his 
idle innocency, and done Things. And those Things 
he has perpetuated until they have been wrought into 
the purpose and intention of being, and from their 
legacy there is no withstanding while Man's time shall 
endure. Man had gone down into the golden valleys, 
and had sharpened him a stone, and had flung it at the 
silent shy creatures who had never done him harm; 
and that was Man's first play. Man had gone into 
the murmurous caverns of the green hills, and in the 
dirt and muck and slime had digged him gold from 
the stored veins therein. When Man had played his 
second play he flung across his shoulders the poor 
broken bodies of the silent shy creatures who had 
never done him harm, and bound his brow with a 
narrow crown of gold, and had gone to tell Her of 
his plays that were so good plays. 

She had not seemed to care for his plays, and had 
not tried to understand and had gone out and looked 
at the stars. Man had thought that a foolish play, and 
had told Her so. Again She did not seem to care, or 
try to understand; and had wandered singing among 
the blood-dark lilies that crimsoned the river's marge. 



78 FROM THEIR GALLERIES 

Her caprice for childish plays Man could never under- 
stand ; and had given up trying to understand why Her 
eyes should fill with tears at the sudden beauty of 
wayside flowers, and why She should comb her hair 
by the water's edge at dawn, and why She should 
dance foolishly and childishly across the floor of their 
dwelling cave when She might be piercing with blades 
the hearts of the woodland creatures, or delving 
murkily into the dim earth. But They knew why She 
did these things ; and that gave new zest to Their play. 

Man grew wearied of his plays; and he prayed for 
a grand play that should be the very Play of plays, 
and should make Her understand. They whispered 
Their counsels into his soul; and his soul hearkened 
as They knew it would. 

"Let me play a play so big that She will understand," 
prayed Man. 

And They hearkened to his prayers, as They always 
do, and bade gray Death come to Man in the guise of 
Fame, and play with Man for Her soul that She might 
understand. And in his pride Man played with gray 
Death in the guise of Fame for Her soul, as he always 
does, and in his pride and the flush of his soul he 
played carelessly, and Death won. 



THEIR PLAY 79 

"You have won," cried Man in the first easy shame 
of defeat. 

"I always win," answered Death wearily. 

"Who are you but Fame?" cried Man. "I care 
nothing for Fame; I am wiUing to lose Fame if only 
She will understand my play." 

"She will understand your play," answered Death. 
"For I am Death." 

Then Man's soul knew the black traitorous play that 
he had played. For he had played for another's soul, 
and without that other's knowledge, and that other 
was She. 

"Death, Death, give Her back to me!" Man cried 
in an agony of repentance. 

"I have given Her back to you," said Death. "All 
things come back to you in Me." 

"You have cheated," cried Man. 

"You played with Me knowing I was Fame,'^ an- 
swered Death. "Now you must tell Her, and She 
will undierstand." 

And They laughed long and loud : all the time They 
had understood. 

In his blind grief of tears Man told Her that he 
had played for Her soul with Death, and that he had 



8o FROM THEIR GALLERIES 

lost. She lay like a pale flower on Her couch, and 
Her eyes were dim with faint stars. 

"Have I not known, O Heart of Mine?" She said. 
"Have you not played for my soul since the beginning ; 
and always, always I have understood, since the be- 
ginnings of things, since your first play." 

Man looked at Her with tired eyes. 

"It has been a jest with me," he said. "The jest is 
outworn." 

"My play was foolish and childish," She said,^'and 
yet with me it has never been a jest." 

"I could not know," said Man dully, and his heart 
was broken with shame. 

"You could never know," She said, and Her mouth 
was wan with piteous betrayal. 

"I am come into the dusk of things," said Man. 
"All birds are flown; darkness is on my soul; I shall 
not laugh again." 

"I shall always laugh," She said. "Even before 
dawn, at the darkest hour, even then I shall laugh." 

For a moment They were troubled, and held in Their 
laughter tmtil Man should speak. Even They do not 
always laugh. 



THEIR PLAY Si 

"I can not laugh," said Man. "Laughter and tears 
I have never understood." 

"Have I not known?" She said. "O Heatt of Mine, 
have I not known, even when you lay upon my heart, 
knowing not, caring not, understanding nothing? Shall 
I fear the greater darkness now?" 

Man bowed his head upon Her breast. In Her eyes 
the stars shone more faintly, and Her words lingered 
upon the air like thistledown caught from the wind. 

"Can you forgive?" said Man. 

"I have never done otherwise," She said. "I could 
not deny you now." 

"The sin is mine," said Man. "My own plays are 
as nothing to the sin I have sinned with your soul. I 
can not face the stars again." 

"There is no sin," She said. "There is only 
compassion." 

Again They forbore to laugh, not understanding 
Her words. 

"Would I had played for my soul!" cried Man. 
"Not yours, not yours !" 

"Had you not already played and lost with yours ?" 
She said. "And shall we not face the long night 
together?" 



82 FROM THEIR GALLERIES 

But Man could not speak; and in his arms She 
grew ever paler. In Her eyes the stars were paling 
one by one into a black pall of unending darkness. 

"Death lied," murmured Man. "He said that you 
would understand; and always you have understood." 

"And now your understanding is mine," She said. 

"I have given you only sorrow, not knowing," said 
Man. "In my unclean pride I have taken all the joy." 

"With me joy and sorrow have been one," She said. 
"That is the great gift They have given me ; and even 
They can not take it from me." 

"Laughter and tears have been one," She said. 

And then in his blackest grief of all Man knew that 
he had never understood, and could never understand. 
But that grief he did not tell Her, knowing She already 
knew. 

"It is better so," She said. "Amid the stars it is 
very lonely; but always I shall wait your coming. 
O Heart of Mine, let the night take me; let me be 
gathered to the eternal darkness." 

In blind grief Man rose from Her body and went 
out into the night, and in his soul he cursed Them 
for the cowards that They are; and his soul was 
wind-swept with Their laughter. And Their laughter 



THEIR PLAY 83 

shrilled across the edge of the worlds and echoed 
horribly among the empty spaces and the bottomless 
pits of the heavens. Among the stars only there was 
silence. Only among the stars. 

But had They not cause for careless laughter ? Had 
They not played a good play with two human Souls? 



COR CORDIUM 



COR CORDIUM 

When this long day had fallen to its wearied close, 
and the night with her sky of immemorial stars and 
her great darkness had covered over the garish eye of 
the sun, I sought my house of dreams builded within 
the deeper darkness of my most secret hope. Into 
mine own heart's country I passed through tortuous 
upwinding dream corridors that led by misted rooms 
endlessly; and from the very stuff of human dreams 
I wrought this record of my journeying. Will you 
not hearken to my song, O Heart of Mine, lest I die 
upon the wayside of forgotten dreams that are as little 
pleading children beating their frail impotency against 
the grievous shut gates of life? Hearken to my song, 
O Heart of Mine, and grant me your forgiveness if 
only that I have too long brooded by the great stream 
of human tears that flows forever silently through the 
dusk of the world . . . 

Amid the dust and heat and flatulence of things I 
had journeyed these many years toward the eventual 

87 



88 FROM THEIR GALLERIES 

harbourage of my seeking, and at last I had come to 
the dark forest that lies on the further side of dreams 
wrought from the web spun by the great inscrutable 
Spinner. Here at the utter edge I paused, and would 
fain have lingered upon the fair and comfortable road- 
way of the middle course. Yet in despite of the in- 
iquitous allurements of the world I turned my back 
upon those fabrications so dear to the gross and cloudy 
eye, and plunged into the dark forest of my hope's 
most fevered imaginings. From impassable obscure- 
ments and thicketed outplaces I was girdled deeper 
and deeper until I came to the center of life's maze 
in that forest of mine own creating where the curtain- 
ing trees hoarded the tranced gloom, and the stars 
were groping rushlights set far above a silence terrible. 
No sound broke across the endless march of trees. 
No wind stirred; all birds were fled. It was the 
death of time. 

A first flutter of snow came down upon the murk 
of darkness. A cold wind that seemed risen from the 
bottomless dungeons of hell outpoured its black abysm 
upon my fainting soul. In the madness of my fear 
I would have turned and entered anew that world 
where love and kindliness shutter in the common 



COR CORDIUM 89 

human affections. Yet by my heart I was constrained 
to leave that profitable world behind, and plunge more 
bravely still into the press of the immensities. I was 
caught within toils of mine own making, and would 
not fly the doom that had lain too close to my lonely 
heart through the unraveling of the laborious years. 
And so beneath the menace of the skies and the un- 
remitting snow I struggled ever onward to the far 
place of my seeking. 

Suddenly through the glimmering perspectives of 
the dark forest floated down upon my passion that 
form my soul had shaped to its own enfolding, and 
I knew for mine own that hope from whose pain there 
is no respite to the poor heart this side of the grave. 
At the terror and wonderment of that rose-dark love- 
liness I fell pitifully upon the forest floor in a swoon, 
murmuring brokenly, "Lo, have I found you, Beloved 
of my dreams?'' 

When I had risen from the toppHng chasms of my 
weakness my head was held within the compass of 
your protective arms, and you were saying, 

"Why are you here, stranger to my senses? None 
venture into the dark forest but die from very heart- 



go FROM THEIR GALLERIES 

break. Return to the world ere the gates close upon 
your madness." 

In despite of my sweet resting-place I slipped the 
chains of hallucination, and cried faintly, "It is you 
who have made this dark forest to be filled with light, 
and this poor heart of mine to break with happiness. 
I have found you. Yet you are the renewal of my 
pain." 

**Your pain?" you whispered, and your eyes grew 
dark with wonder. 

*'The pain of dreams," I said; "the pain dwelling 
within those dull depths on the further side of human 
grief." 

"I do not understand," you said. 

"My pain is older than the daybreak of the world," 
I cried, "and all the crimson sundowns of time are 
stained awfully with its blood. Mine is the pain bound 
within the narrow house of life that would give its 
last moment of anguish if only to keep alive your 
perilous beauty." 

"You are mad," you said, "mad with the cold and 
the loneliness of these woods." 

"All the world Itqs named me mad since man first 
dealed in profitable facts," I cried. "The world has 



COR CORDIUM 91 

always broken dreams upon its iron wheels. And 
now you come into my life, and say you do not under- 
stand! Yet you are mine, forever mine, for I have 
given you birth in this heart and shaped you to my 
dearest need. Wherever and whenever I find you I 
shall know you for mine own!" 

With wonder and fear your eyes grew ever darker; 
but behind the curtain of their doubt I saw the fires 
of comprehension creep new-born into life. 

"Are you too my heart's dream as you say that I 
am yours?" you asked. 

"In the world of men I have not known you," I 
said. "Only in my dreams I have known you. Only 
in those secret gardens forgotten of the sun, where 
no birds sing, and bees murmur drowsily beside a 
purple twilit sea. There from my blood I have fash- 
ioned you to be the consecrate rose of desire; there 
you shall grow until I find you !" 

"How shall I know you when you come?" you asked 
wistfully, and in your eyes the fires of comprehension 
grew ever stronger, and you spoke with gathering 
anguish. "How shall I know that far day of first 
meeting?" 

"You may not know," I said, "for I am not yet 



92 FROM THEIR GALLERIES 

parcel of your dreams as you have been of mine. I 
may come to you with my eyes dark with pain, and the 
seal of all the world's sorrow on my brow. I may 
come to you like a thief in the night, blindly seeking 
atonement on your breast. No, you w411 not know ! 
But if one day you should wear the form of flesh in 
the daylight world wherein my hours are spended, I 
shall never dream to pass you by. Though you are 
sunk deep in the mud and filth of life, and your love- 
liness is trampled under by the feet of the base world, 
I shall never fear to descend to you: I shall pluck 
you, and wear you, an imperishable flower, on my 
heart!" 

At my words and the passion of my pleading, doubt 
fell from you like a garment overworn, and I took 
you in my arms against the intolerable burden of life. 

"Your heart and mine, yours only," I whispered. 
"Our souls are met upon our lips. Your lips hold 
the secret of my being; your lips are red with my life's 
blood." 

"My life's blood too," you said. 

"We are past all harm !" I cried. "Here the world 
can never bring its teachery." 

Upon the heroism of my words, desperate and 



COR CORDIUM 93 

forlorn, there broke across the night the sound of 
wolves, and the dreadful patter of feet came with a 
hideous and wuthering insistency. Nearer and nearer 
wailed the desolate chorus ; and you drooped faint and 
white in my arms, and we sank to the ground in a last 
bitter appeasement of kisses. 

"It is the wolves," you sobbed; "and I shall never 
know !" 

"It is the wolves !" I cried in rage against that swell- 
ing and immutable cry of triumph. "It is the wolves 
of the world!" 

"Death is sweeter so," you murmured. 

"The soul of dreams is deathless," I cried, as the 
patter of hurrying feet fled over the underbrush, and 
the sound of the wolves rose to an universal desecration. 

"The soul of dreams can not die," I said, "though 
all the wolves of the world hunt it to its doom." 

"For me it is death," you sobbed, "for me it is 
death. See where their eyes gleam in the curtain of 
the trees!" 

As the wolves broke from the fringe of the far trees 
and made hideously upon us, I took you in my arms, 
?nd cried in the mastery of fate, 

"Let come the wolves of the world, the gray ghosts 



94 FROM THEIR GALLERIES 

of despair and hate and fame and lust that have 
plucked evilly at this ill-starred race of man since this 
world's making! Yet mine own shall come to me. 
Not all the faltered constructions of circumstance and 
time shall prevail against its coming!" 

But you were faint and pale in my arms, and the 
wolves were ringed about us in a sudden bodeful hush 
of victory, and in that pause of death I could hear 
the snow that falls forever and forever through dreary 
and illimitable spaces of circumstance and time, un- 
relenting and unhurrying, upon the measureless, for- 
gotten graves of unnumbered human dreams . . . 



AT THE LAST 



AT THE LAST 

And in my dream I dreamed that I had been gathered 
to the dust these many years, and that I was brought 
to judgment before Them in Their supernal galleries. 
A thousand eternities or so They kept me waiting 
while They debated the shocking case of a woman who 
had run away from her husband because he was am- 
bitious for her soul. Her crime was that she had loved 
him too greatly. That feminine vagary could hardly 
be forgiven her. But at last in a discourse freighted 
with stupendous laughter one of Them pointed out 
that the husband could hardly have had a sense of 
humor. At once Their pendulum of decision swung 
on a backward cycle. Him They condemned to pass 
eternity with professors; her They admitted to the 
company of the immortals. In defence of his conduct 
the husband pled rather desperately that he had always 
supported morality and the venerable institutions. 
Vast and inextinguishable laughter whelmed his re- 
proaches. Between breaths of gigantic breath-taking 

97 



98 FROM THEIR GALLERIES 

They informed him that women had never been one 
of the venerable institutions. He answered that the 
world had always considered her so ; but They simply 
went on laughing. And from Their judgment there 
is no appeal. 

Their procedure on earth had always impressed me 
as rather capricious, and so I was not surprised at 
Their absence of legal formularies and Their imending 
fund of laughter. When They had done with laughing 
at the virtuous husband They turned upon me Their 
superlative condescension. I suppose They expected 
me to unlock the floodgates of a torrential eloquence. 
But I said nothing, and only clutched the more tightly 
the frail and many-colored bubble of dreams in my 
hand. In impressive omnipotence They viewed me; 
but still I said nothing, and smiled rather sadly. Their 
makebelieve of seriousness hardly became Them. 

"What is your defence?" They asked, striving to 
muffle Their laughter in Their beards. 

"I have no defence," I answered. 

"What reward do you ask then?" They said. 

"I ask no reward," I answered. 

"Then why are you here?" They questioned in 
wonder. 



AT THE LAST 99 

"To demand my right of You," I answered. "One 
thing only I ask of You, and that is my right. For 
I would sleep. Yea, I would sleep a million million years." 

They broke into laughter tumultuous and cumula- 
tive. Indeed They were easily amused. 

"And that is all you ask?" They questioned. 

"There is no more blessed portion under the sun 
than sleep," I said. "But You do not seem to under- 
stand. I do not ask it: I demand it. Even You can 
not take it from me. It is my right !" 

At my presumption of authority They seemed dis- 
turbed, and forebore to laugh. 

"By what heroic life, by what bitter sacrifices do 
you demand sleep as your portion?" They questioned. 

"By nothing save this only," I answered, and I held 
up to view my frail many-colored bubble of dreams. 

Under eyebrows craggy and enormous as the eternal 
hills They gloomed upon me. 

"It is only a toy," They said. 

"It is wrought of human tears," I said. "By the tears 
of things, the tears I have shed for my fellow men." 

"We do not understand," They said. "The word 
tears we do not know. There is only laughter." 

"Tears You have never understood," I answered. 



loo FROM THEIR GALLERIES 

"Tears are the birthright of humanity; and these tears 
of mine I have gathered for keeping against the time 
of my eventual rest. In the shadows of the world I 
have gathered them; in the last heartbreak of life I 
have fashioned them into a frail bubble of dreams. 
They are mine, mine only ; and by their valiancy I ask 
my portion of eternal sleep. That right You are not 
to deny. Against that right Your laughter is powerless." 

They huddled uneasily together, and upon Their lips 
died a spectral laughter. 

"At the last you must come to me for judgment," I 
said in my uttermost pride. *T am only a dreamer 
who has done nothing save understand, and felt nothing 
save compassion. I am only a dreamer, one of a 
thousand such whom the world has stretched upon its 
grievous rack. In my hand I carry only this frail 
bubble of dreams; and by them alone I shall win 
eternal sleep. But at the last You must come to me 
and mine for judgment; and by the tears of things 
shall You be judged!" 

And in my dream I dreamed that They faded into a 
dim and nebulous unrest, and I might sleep a million 
million unremembered years under the mortuary and 
indifferent sun. 



